The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
The words NYMPHOMANIAC appear on the screen for about thirty minutes but could use the subheading "LARS VON TRIER HATES EVERYBODY'S GENITALS BUT WILL SHOW YOU TONS OF THEM FOR THE NEXT FOUR HOURS." CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG is bloody on the street in the rain where STELLAN SKARSGARD takes her home. RAMMSTEIN is playing for some reason.
INT. STELLAN SKARSGARD'S APARTMENT
STELLAN gives CHARLOTTE some tea and cake and tucks her into bed because he is fucking awesome.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Well I know you must have an interesting story since I picked you up injured on the street and you refuse to go to a hospital. Want to tell me the story?
CHARLOTTOE GAINSBOURG
Want to tell me a little about yourself first? Who the fuck are you?
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Nope. Not until later. Your life story comes first.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Well you will never guess... I'm a nymphomaniac.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Whoa?!? Did not see that coming.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Well I actually am a shitload of other things you really don't see coming.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Speaking of coming, get to your story.
CHARLOTTE begins to discuss the beginning of her sexuality. CONNIE NIELSON is her cold hearted mother and CHRISTIAN SLATER is her warm loving father.
INT. THE PAST
TWELVISH YEAR OLD CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG is looking through medical books while CHRISTIAN watches her.
CHRISTIAN SLATER
How endearing. My daughter reading off the various parts of the female anatomy is so damn adorable. I will just grin at her as she reads the word "clitoris" to herself. This may or may not mean we have an incestuous relationship which could explain her eventual sexual addiction, but even though this movie is entirely made of backstory, that is one that will never be told.
CONNIE NIELSON
(has no lines but plays solitaire and provides no nurture or love to her daughter which may also be the reason she grows up to pickle every cucumber she comes across.)
CHRISTIAN and REALLY YOUNG CHARLOTTE go stare at some trees for a while.
CHRISTIAN SLATER
Do you feel that Really Young Charlotte? The trees... they have souls
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
That is stupid. Is this a sexy Tree of Life?
CHRISTIAN SLATER
No. This will be the opposite of sexy.
YOUNG CHARLOTTE grows up into sixteen year old STACY MARTN. She is obsessed with losing her virginity and counter intuitively seeks out SHIA LABEOUF for this task.
INT. SHIA LABEOUF'S SHADY APARTMENT
SHIA works on a motorcycle while STACY walks in wearing a school uniform with her hair in braids to illustrate the fact that she is young and virginal.
SHIA LABEOUF
(actual line)
You should probably take off your knickers.
STACY MARTIN (YOUNG CHARLOTTE)
Wow I can tell this is going to be gentle and romantic and you are going to be so sensitive and aware of my needs through this process.
SHIA does what SHIA does best and jerks himself off while being extremely creepy. He then humps STACY three times and then flips her over and fucks her in the ass without her permission which NOBODY SHOULD EVER DO.
INT. PRESENT DAY IN STELLAN'S APARTMENT
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Not surprisingly I did not want to have sex for a while after that, but this movie being what it is- that changes.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Will either one of us ever point out how odd it is that complete strangers are talking about deeply personal things?
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
No. Everyone chronicles their vast sexual past with a complete stranger they just met on the street. Also I will say "cunt" a lot because women love to refer to their own genitals this way.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Edgy. But just so you know, I'm going to compare a lot of your stories to fly fishing because this movie isn't long enough already and fly fishing is super interesting. Also I know everything about everything else. I know all of history. All of it. And I have read all the books. All of them. So I will also relate your stories to everything else that ever did or did not happen.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
That sounds about right. Well, a few years after I got my pesky virginity out of the way, I decided to really own my sexuality by dressing like a prostitute and fucking a lot of strangers.
INT. THE PAST ON A TRAIN
STACY (YOUNG CHARLOTTE) and her friend SOPHIE KENNEDY CLARK make a bet to see how many people they can stranger bang on a train. The prize is a bag of tiny chocolates.
STACY (YOUNG CHARLOTTE)
Hey there stranger. Wanna, um, show me the bathroom?
STRANGER 1
No.
STRANGER 2
And have sex in it? YESSSSS!
Both ladies do this a few more times. Eventually, they run out out of men so they go into first class and try for a married man.
SOPHIE KENNEDY CLARK
You've got this Stacy. Men are dumb vessels with no morals. Most of them cannot resist very young strangers in fishnets and short red leather shorts.
STACY MARTIN (YOUNG CHARLOTTE)
Of course. Hey there married stranger. What's up?
MARRIED STRANGER
I'm on my way home to have sex with my wife because she's ovulating and we want to make a baby.
STACY MARTIN
Well THAT was a lot to unload to a complete stranger. Um... want to unload your load?
MARRIED STRANGER
Do you want to see a woman feeling the consistency of her vaginal discharge?
STACY MARTIN (YOUNG CHARLOTTE)
What? Jesus no!
MARRIED STRANGER
Too Bad! There it is!
That scene happens.
STACY MARTIN (YOUNG CHARLOTTE)
That put me in the mood. Want a blow job?
MARRIED STRANGER
No... Wife. Ovulating. Married. Baby Making.
(pause)
Ok, sure.
STACY goes down on him and it looks REAL because porn actors are used to actually fuck each other in this movie to make the audience feel right at home.
INT. PRESENT DAY IN STELLAN'S APARTMENT
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
You see? I'm a terrible person.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
No no. You helped that man. Sperm will die if it never finds release...
(coughs, shrugs)
I'm trying here.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Uh huh. Well anyhow, a male character in this movie sharing insights is so moving! I mean that was a really weak rationale, but I'll take it.
Suddenly, FORTY PENISES flash one the screen while CHARLOTTE talks about foreskin. Or something. Dialogue takes a backseat when forty diverse meat missiles flash on a screen.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Did you know humans can build a jet, fly to another planet, set up a colony and grow organic food with all of the circumcised foreskin that has ever been circumcised. I could be rapping the entirety of War and Peace right now and nobody would every notice because SO MANY BOLOGNA PONIES ARE IN YOUR FACE.
INT. THE PAST AND STACY (YOUNG CHARLOTTE'S) APARTMENT
STACY (YOUNG CHARLOTTE) is banging so many men she can't keep track of all of them. UMA THURMAN is in this movie and her husband is one of the 120,000 men a day STACY is fucking.
UMA THURMAN'S HUSBAND
I love you Stacy, and I am moving in with you.
STACY MARTIN (YOUNG CHARLOTTE)
Yikes. Well shit I have another dude on his way so you should probably skedaddle before things get weird.
UMA THURMAN
Helllllo! I'm here with my three children who just wanted to see their father's mistress! And have tea with them! Oh look a poor dumbstruck visitor! Why don't you ask me to leave? Oh that's right I have to scream in your face and talk about how poor we will be now that my husband has left me!
THREE HORROR STRICKEN CHILDREN
In the near future we will probably be living together, praising Jesus, wearing women's skin, and bathing each other. All thanks to this here dinner party. Thanks Mom Uma, you have doomed us all.
This is actually one of the most forgettable scenes in this movie.
Later on, CHRISTIAN SLATER is dying. We actually see STACY MARTIN (YOUNG CHARLOTTE) become sexually aroused while her father is dying because lunches need to be purged in disgust.
INT. PRESENT DAY AGAIN IN STELLAN SKARSGARD'S APARTMENT
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Now I even have something wise to say about that! Sometimes people react strangely to tragedy, your body's reaction to your father's death was arousal. Totally normal.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Pretty sure it's because I am incapable of feeling emotions.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
No no. You were sad. Grief and arousal, it's all the same.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Fine, I'll take that one too. Anyway, one day I was walking through a park and saw a bunch of ripped up pictures of Shia and his wife. And then he was looking down on me from a bridge and reached up and took me in his arms and we fell in love.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
No that can't be true. That is so random and unlikely. I am actually calling you out on the bullshit in your story.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
No it's true. And then we have a a lot of sex while I declare he "fill my holes" because fuck subtlety.
A bunch of scenes of SHIA and STACY doing a lot of hole filling go by in flashback.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Now I need to go even farther back because I can't tell stories in chronological order. When I was twelve I had a seizuregasm. The doctors said I had a seizure but it sure felt like an orgasm to me because those two are totally the same. It felt like I was floating and these two women appeared beside me.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Those women you are describing is Messalina, a famous nymphomaniac, and the Whore of Babylon. The Whore is associated with the Antichrist and the Apocalypse so I think we just tied in all three of Von Trier's "Depression Trilogy" movies with your orgasm! Hooray! Are we done here yet?
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
No. We still have sadomasochism and adventures in lesbianism to get to. But anything called "Depression Trilogy" deserves an eye roll.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Done. Anyway, continue.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBORG
That was it. Back to the past but a little less farther back than the seizuregasm. While I was banging Shia I totally lost my ability to have an orgasm.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Yeah, I could see that.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
No I mean, like ever. Stellan are you listening here? You haven't gotten aroused while I'm telling these stories?
STELLAN SKARSGARD
THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO TURN ME ON? WHICH PART?? No, you are correct, I'm asexual and a virgin. I don't even like to masturbate.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Well that explains how you had time to read everything ever written. It also makes our relationship have a very interesting dynamic.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
I know. And because of this, I would never judge you. I also have a lot of religious imagery in my apartment but I am an atheist. I don't know if you have noticed this yet, but I am extremely complex.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Clearly. Back to my story.
INT. THE PAST AGAIN
STACY has a baby which brings back her sexual feelings so she tries to have sex with SHIA every single second of every day.
SHIA LABOUF
Stacy, I love you but I am physically incapable of boning you as often as you require. You'll have to try finding someone else.
STACY MARTIN (YOUNG CHARLOTTE)
(runs out the door)
STACY (YOUNG CHARLOTTE) pretends to be a piano teacher with a broken car to attract hoards of men and this is hugely successful.
INT. STELLAN SKARSGARD'S APARTMENT AGAIN IN PRESENT DAY JESUS THIS MOVIE JUMPS AROUND A LOT
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Stacy Martin permanently turns into me, Charlotte Gainsbourg. This makes me age twenty years in three years. Raising a baby and pretending to be a horny piano teacher is really hard.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
So do you have a sexy whimsical tales of a failed threesome on the horizon?
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Well YES! I arranged to have sex with two men who did not speak English. They spent the time arguing with each other with their erections inches away from the other. I bailed, but if erections could high five, they would have.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
And what did you take away from this scenario?
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
That I need a sadist in my life.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Of course.
INT.THE PAST AT YOUR FRIENDLY LOCAL SADOMASOCHIST HEADQUARTERS
CHARLOTTE waits for JAMIE BELL who has a waiting room of women. CHARLOTTE decides to go and wait for him too.
JAMIE BELL
Go away Charlotte, this isn't for you.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Try me.
JAMIE BELL
Alright, I'm going to punch you in the face REALLY HARD.
He does.
JAMIE BELL
Okay I'll take you. But we do not fuck and you do not have a safe word. If you come inside with me, nothing you say can stop me from a procedure or act I perform on you.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
So let me get this straight. I have no idea who you are, you do not allow a safe word, and you just said PROCEDURE... Sign me up!
JAMIE BELL
Also, I'm going to call you Fido.
INT. PRESENT DAY AGAIN IN STELLAN'S APARTMENT
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
JAMIE tied me onto sofa with a two inch ratchet strap, duct tape, and rope. In order to do this every single night I left my toddler alone in the middle of the night. One night he climbed onto the balcony but Shia came home in time to save him. He left me and took the baby.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Wow. Well was it all worth it?
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
I don't know. Unfortunately Jamie, is never seen again. Shia and Jamie's roles could have been switched considering that people would rather watch Jamie Bell floss his teeth over watching Shia LaBeouf jerk himself off, but oh well.
INT. THE PAST BUT NOT THAT FAR BACK INTO THE PAST AT THIS POINT
CHARLOTTE meets WILLEM DAFOE to discuss debt collecting.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
WILLEM? Is that you? Oh fuck jesus monkey balls christ is this a prequel to Antichrist? PLEASE GOD DON'T MAKE THIS BE ANTICHRIST.
WILLEM DAFOE
No, no. A baby came close to falling off a balcony earlier in this movie but DIDN'T! That's progress. Anyway, I'm a criminal debt collector. You can use your knowledge of men and sex to be able to collect debt from criminals.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Knowing every man's wildest fantasy makes them cough up money in ways the threat of murder cannot.
WILLEM DAFOE
Well yeah. Oh but you are going to suck off a pedophile. This still isn't Antichrist but we can't make anybody too far from feeling nauseated at all times.
CHARLOTTE goes around tying up criminals who owe people money. And the pedophile thing happens too.
WILLEM DAFOE
Charlotte, you're awesome and a damn good sport, but we need to bring a younger lady back in this movie.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
No thanks. I'm handling this fine on my own.
WILLEM DAFOE
Sorry no, we need younger boobies in here. Here's how this works. Find out which one of our clients has a kid they're neglecting, find the kid, become like a surrogate parent, make them trust and love you to the point where they are so loyal for you they would go to prison for you. And then train them as your apprentice.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
That is so noble. Does that also involve having sex with them?
WILLEM DAFOE
Sure whatever. Have at it.
CHARLOTTE collects MIA GOTH to do all of this.
INT. THE PAST IN STELLAN SKARSGARD'S APARTMENT BUT IT REALLY ISN'T THE PAST ANYMORE
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
I taught Mia everything I know about the Man Money Torture Business, but then we sort of fell in love due to my wounded vagina.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Your WHA?!?
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Yeah my snatch was ruined. Mia didn't mind though, and we had our way with each other when she turned eighteen. It would have been a lot less awkward if she didn't look like a teenage boy. But somehow our relationship wasn't totally void of chemistry because I can apparently have chemistry with, well, a woman who looks like a teenage boy. We also continued our torture sex debt collecting business.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
How did that go?
CHARLOTTE GAINSOURG
One day I came across Shia's house. But he had turned into OLD SHIA even though I've been this age for like two hours. Anyway, I told Mia to handle it herself so I could avoid him. She ended up boning him.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
And you handled this rationally, I assume?
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Eh. I found them making out in an alley. I had a gun and tried to shoot Old Shia but for some reason did not know that you are supposed to cock the gun. Whoops. He beat the shit out of me instead. And then he and Mia had sex the same exact way he fucked me the first time. And then she pissed on me. I think she's a sociopath. And that is how you found me; beat up and pissed on.
STELLAN SKARSGARD
Listen Charlotte I'm going to make a profound speech here, so pay close attention. If this story was told by a man it would be totally different. You had a lot of sex with men you hardly knew, you experimented in subcultures, and later you formed a relationship with a young woman. Nothing about this, told from a man's perspective, would be seen remotely the same way that it does coming from a woman. Your past may not be typical, but you hold yourself in the same regard as a biblical prostitute partially accountable for the apocalypse. Your sexuality will not be the end of humankind.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
But I'm self destructive and I have to stop. I don't know if I should congratulate myself or hate myself and neither does this movie. And seriously that dept collector sex torturer job and being a sex toy for a sadist is not very comparable to anyone's story, man or woman. Thanks for the talk though, time for bed. I have a lot to think about.
CHARLOTTE and STELLAN go to bed but then STELLAN walks in bottomless and tries to squeeze himself inside CHARLOTTE.
CHAROLTTE GAINSBOURG
So wait.... The entire four hours of this movie showing you as an asexual man who showed extreme empathy for almost every single act a female sex addict makes, is now just trying to bone her? Please tell me you have something wise to say? Shit, I wouldn't even care if you quoted the Bible or talked about fly fishing again. What the fuck is going on?
STELLAN SKARSGARD
(actual line)
But you've fucked thousands of men...
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
So everything you have said or done in this movie was just completely obliterated, and you are just the world's horniest asexual man?! Who the fuck would write this?
STELLAN SKARSGARD
The same person who casts Shia LaBeouf in a highly sexual role. So someone who hates everybody.
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
Whelp. You are a dick after all, so I have to kill you now.
She does. For a story with more credibility, consider one where Jesus and Clint Eastwood fight off mutating dragons with lightsabers on a spaceship.
END